Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) are used in the field of dentistry to provide a range of products including crowns, veneers, inlays and onlays, fixed bridges, dental implant restorations, and orthodontic appliances. Typically, a dental CAD session starts from a generic library or templates to automatically generate a design proposal for a restoration. A library locally stored on a computer may frequently contain only a single generic representative tooth template for a given tooth number from which a restoration design is created. Due to the high anatomic variability, a large amount of deformation of the restoration design on the part of a design technician is required in order to produce the final tooth shape.
It would be desirable to have a method that automatically generates proposals which are much closer to the final shape of an acceptable dental restoration.